


misfire/vilify

by cuthbert



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Cid Kramer Is A Shitty Dad, Coming of Age, Gen, Guilt, Training Accidents, bridging gaps in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 15:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13079571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuthbert/pseuds/cuthbert
Summary: A short study of a younger Seifer grappling with having severely injured a friend.





	misfire/vilify

The Training Area was placed so far from the infirmary that it seemed horribly deliberate. Maybe it was. Seifer didn’t know. 

Right now he didn’t know much at all. They’d been sparring, live fire and live spells, and suddenly something in Fujin’s shields had  _ broken _ and it had been too late to pull back all he’d just thrown her way. 

He knew his memory was shit, that Dincht kid saying they’d been at the same orphanage and acting all hurt when he and Squall didn’t know him was proof enough. He knew he couldn’t remember things right. He knew that much, and he knew all he could remember of the next fifteen minutes was a fragmented tangle. Raijin had carefully checked that she could move her feet before he picked her up. He’d had to yell, almost, but she could, and the next thing Seifer could remember was Rai was carrying her and they were both running for Kadowaki’s office like their own lives depended on it. At some point he’d misplaced his jacket (had he draped it over her?), and now he was sitting in an uncomfortable chair set out in the hallway freezing his arms off in nothing but his vest and slacks. 

Cid was there. Wasn’t he supposed to be off fundraising or some shit? He couldn’t remember that either, not when the man was as angry as Seifer ever  _ could  _ remember from all his fourteen years. He couldn’t even really hear him. Something something actions have consequences, something recklessness, something something something something blood on his hands something. It took a great effort not to turn to Raijin and make a sad joke out of it all. He wanted so  _ badly  _ to share what had just crossed his mind - “man, you’d think she was _paying_ to be here, not like us.”

The anger subsided and Cid just looked  _ worried _ , and somehow that was worse than him being angry or disappointed. Obviously he hadn’t said what he’d so wanted to out loud, or the old man would’ve gone off again. 

Raijin was trying to curl into the smallest ball he could, next to him. It wasn’t a normal feeling for Seifer, wanting to hug somebody, but he wanted to do that and tell him it’d be okay. It wouldn’t be normal ever again but it’d be okay, even without… shit, he couldn’t remember  _ her _ name now either, the other doc, that wasn’t good… even alone, without help from another doctor, Kadowaki was good at what she did.

His memory skipped again, when he tried to remember later what had happened that day. One moment Cid looked worried more than disappointed or angry, and then he was gone and Kadowaki was out there saying quietly that they could go in to see Fujin, but only if they wouldn’t agitate her.

He’d have treated her like she was made out of spun sugar and it was raining if the doctor had told him to. This was, after all, his fault. The bloody ruin of half her face, the burns over so much of her body, the way she’d squeezed his hand like she was trying to hang on to life itself: it was all his fault. 

Whatever Kadowaki hadn’t been able to fix was his fault.

He wanted to scream or cry or throw up or all three, but instead he just nodded, and let Raijin help him out of the torture device Garden called a folding chair.

Maybe this was what growing up felt like. Maybe it was all painful. Seifer didn’t know.

**Author's Note:**

> A Discord channel I hang out in collectively agreed that it would be absolutely heartbreaking if he were the reason Fujin was missing that eye and most of her hearing. Almost six hundred words later, here we are.


End file.
